Pigeon Key!

Henry Flagler was a wealthy oil tycoon who took an interest in developing resorts and railroads in southern Florida. He developed resorts in St Augustine, Ormond Beach, Daytona Beach, Palm Beach, and also became known as the Father of Miami.

By 1904, his railroad had reached Homestead, south of Miami.

In 1905, when the US announced the building of the Panama Canal, Flagler immediately became interested in linking Key West to the mainland of southern Florida.

Key West was the closest deep water port to the Canal, and could take advantage of Cuban and Latin American trade, and would allow significant trade possibilities with the west.

In the photo above, Flagler’s overseas railroad is pictured on the right.

The bridge to the left is the newer auto bridge, built in the 1990’s. Both spans you see are the beginning of the “7 mile bridge” from Marathon to Little Duck Key in the lower keys. This 7 mile bridge is the longest overwater span of the overseas highway, which is 127.5 miles long, and links mainland Florida to Key West. 

Pat and I had rented bikes to get around on for a few days, so decided to ride out to Pigeon Key, across three miles of Flagler’s old railroad bridge which still connected Pigeon Key with Marathon.

Pigeon Key was one of many work camps for Flagler’s crews, who built the 127.5 mile overseas railroad to Key West.  

Pictured above is Pigeon Key as seen from the bridge. I would estimate this island to be about 30 acres. On it, 450 railroad workers and their families were housed, fed, and materials delivered and stored. As the railroad was built further westward, the trains would transport material and supplies from mainland southern Florida across the completed sections, to various work camps such as this. We were told that the employees all liked Flagler, and worked hard for him. The initial 7 year construction schedule was completed in just 4 years. As Flagler was aging, all of the employees wanted him to be able to ride the first train from southern Florida mainland to Key West. The work crews all united in this “marathon” 24 hour a day work schedule, and in 1912, Flagler rode the first train into Key West.

We were told that this is where the town of Marathon got its name. Marathon is actually on Vaca Key, just 3 miles east of Pigeon Key. 

Most of the original buildings remain, and have been restored. After construction was completed, the barracks were torn down, and better quarters erected for the painters, mechanics, and swing bridge tenders who remained.

The photo above was taken from Pigeon Key, looking up at Flagler’s railroad bridge, as it exists today.

The original bridge / overseas railroad was just the 8’ wide blue steel gussets with steel train tracks laid on top. The concrete road bed on top was added in the late 1930’s, after the Labor Day hurricane of 1935 washed out a 40 mile section of land based railroad bed at Islamorada. As the overseas railroad had never made a profit for Flagler, he sold the right of way to the State, and they turned it into an auto highway by adding the concrete road deck.

In the early 1990’s, an entire new bridge system was built alongside Flagler’s bridge.

Sections of Flagler’s original bridge are still used as bike ways and fishing piers.

Pigeon Key now operates as a non profit  marine educational center for young students in the 8th to 12th grades. They come from all over the country to participate.  

On our ride back, we saw Tow Boat US towing one boat in, and another it appears they did not get to in time.

That evening we biked over to the Sunset Grill for a Valentines dinner with our friends Marc & Michele from Marcs Ark, and another sunset! We never tire of the sunsets in paradise!

Tune in later, and Pat will tell you about our snorkel trip to Sombrero Reef, and our day in Key West.

Captn Ken

More on Marathon!

Above is a picture of the Sombrero Light which is about 4 miles from our marina and is the location of the Sombrero reef!  Friends from “Buckeye”, Chris and Susan were heading out snorkeling one day while Ken was back in MN and invited me to go along!  What a beautiful reef!  Of course I was wishing I had a tank and the rest of my SCUBA gear to really explore it but it was great fun anyway!  There are about 30 mooring balls to tie up to! 

Neighboring  boats had me over for dinner one evening and the dock had a docktail party one night so I was able to meet the rest of the boaters on our end of the marina!  Many of them come down to Burdines every winter.  Quite a few of the couples were from Michigan!  One other current Looper boat and one “gold” flag looper, meaning they had already completed the loop were there.  I was given some good tips about anchoring and marinas we have yet to come to! 

Sitting on the boat one afternoon, a gentleman came and knocked and said he was from our home marina of Ole Miss and had his boat on “J” dock!  Stuart and Gloria were coming to Burdines for lunch and just happened to see $20BUCKS!  They recognized the boat and came over to say hi!  What a small world!

No sooner had they left and another knock on the boat and it was Dan Larsen, the son of boating friends of Ken’s.  Dan, his wife Angie and Gator, the ferocious dog were just transferred for Dan’s job to a town near Homestead, FL.  They had been following our blog and drove down to say hi!  So fun to meet them.  They are hoping to drive back down next weekend when Ken is back.

Last activity before the Captain returned was an art fair held in the KMart parking lot.  Below are some shots of the art fair.  One booth had all sorts of dog clothes.  This one is awful cute for Paisley, my grand dog!   No worries, I didn’t buy it Brian!

This guy was making the coolest baskets out of palm leaves.  He made a basket in about 15 minutes!  Said he can’t keep any inventory at these art fairs as folks buy them so quickly!

It is nice to have the Captain back at the boat after his trip home!  All is well now!

We rented bikes today for a couple days!  We will do a post after our bike adventures! 

Still livin’ the dream!  Pat

Robert got me

On my trip home, I was lucky to get a ride from Marathon to Key West from a friend of a friend, Marc & Michele’s friends, Mark & Becky from Muscatine, IA were here visiting, and offered me a ride down in their car.

As they had to leave Marathon early AM, that got me to the airport early. I had about four hours until plane time. I took a walk along the ocean front near the airport, and discovered an old fort which was open for tours. Pictured above, is Fort  Martello, which was built during the civil war. The war ended prior to the fort being completed, and it was never used as a military operation. It is now on the National Register Of Historic Places, a museum of Key West history, and also has some local artists art work displayed. Sorry I don’t have a better long shot of it, but it is a large, all brick structure, three stories tall in the center.

Gun ports on all sides of the structure!

Two  of the major industries in Key West early on were cigar making, and ship wreckers. Many ships struck the reefs coming into Key West, and an entire industry flourished with people, called “Wreckers”, who would go out and salvage the cargo and the ships themselves.

Cuba lies only 90 miles off Key West. Many Cubans would build makeshift boats, called Chugs, and attempt to escape Cuba, and head for Key West. If they made it, the boats were abandoned in the shallows, they would sneak ashore and try to blend in with the Key West people. Not all made it.

Key West is also home to some pretty eclectic artists! The entire third floor is a rotating display.

On display at this time were metal sculptures.

Pictured below is Robert. Robert was one of the things I first saw when I entered the fort, so I took a photo.

Robert is a doll given to 4 year old Gene Otto in 1903. Throughout Gene’s life, he blamed every bad deed on Robert. Every type of treachery, misdeed, and mischief that happened was blamed on Robert. By the time Gene was married, and had become a successful artist, Robert had been blamed for a life time of errors, sin and folly.  For years, Robert has been seen and heard moving around, shifting positions, and even heard giggling behind peoples backs.  The fort cats even keep their distance when looking at Robert.

After I shot the photo, I noticed a wall full of letters behind Robert. All of the letters asked for Robert's forgiveness. It seems that all of these people had also taken a photo of Robert, and soon after bad things had happened to them. It seems Robert does not want his photo taken!

As I left the fort later, the woman at the entrance asked me if I had taken a photo of Robert. I said I had, but really did not believe in VOODOOO!

I walked over to the airport, and ordered a sandwich at the restaurant. I then called Pat to let her know my plane would leave shortly. After the call, I hung up my phone, and it went dead! It would not restart, even with the charger plugged in! Guess I better write a letter to Robert!!!!

While I was home, I stopped to see our friends Phil & Rollie. Phil was diagnosed with lymphoma in ’08.

He was able to become cancer free, but the lymphoma reappeared last month. He just started another round of chemo. I could not believe what a positive attitude they both had! One thing they kept saying was to “Drink The Good Wine Now!”

We’re taking their advice!

Captn Ken

PS:  I just published this post, and checked it. When you look at the listings of posts on our site, the intro verbiage for this post is in a foreign language!!! And I don’t write or talk any foreign languages! Now do you believe in Robert!!!

Burdines Waterfront Marina, Marathon, FL!

Here we are in Marathon, FL!  This is Burdines where we are staying for the month of February!  Above is the Chiki Tiki Bar and Grill on the top level and the gas dock and marina store on the bottom.  The gal in the marina store used to live in Hager City, WI by Red Wing and she worked for “Rat” at Mr. Sippi on the river for years!  Small world!  Great place to eat and watch the water traffic coming into Boot Key Harbor!   Close by is a West Marine and a Home Depot........heaven for the Captain!

The four cute little colored buildings are the restrooms, showers and laundry facilities! 
We  had hoped to find more loopers when we arrived in Marathon as the camaraderie with fellow Loopers is part of the fun of this trip!  We found them!  Just a boat away is “Lady in Red”, Gregg and Donna.  We enjoyed cocktails on their boat last night!  They are from NC and we first met at the Thanksgiving Day dinner at the harbor hosts of Panama City Marina!

Across from us on the Pancho’s Fuel Dock Marina side is “Buckeye” and next to them was “Marcia, Marcia, Marcia”, a couple who finished the Loop several years ago who hail from Wabasha Marina!  We recognized the boat right away and enjoyed meeting John and Marcia!

The first Looper couple we met on this trip way back up on the Mississippi, Marc and Michele from Marc’s Ark are also here in Marathon staying at Sombrero Dockside Marina just a dinghy ride away!  So fun to see old friends again!

Boot Key Harbor has over 200 mooring balls and while it is hard to tell from the picture, they are full!  This sure is a popular spot for folks traveling south in the winter!  I can see why....it is so laid back and while the weather hasn’t been that great yet (been rainy the last couple days), it is very warm!

Ken will be flying home tomorrow for his Mom’s funeral so please everyone say a prayer for Ken and his family at this very sad time!

I will stay and make sure all is well on 20BUCKS seen above nestled into her home for February!
We are heading for Sunset Grill tonight for dinner with friends from Marc’s Ark hoping to see a sunset.  As I said the weather has not been too cooperative!  Below is the first sunset we tried to watch at Sunset Grill and also the frequent view from the windshield of 20BUCK$! 

Rain, rain go away!  Wait a minute it stopped raining, guys are swimming, guys are sailing.......!  Time to go out and enjoy!

Pat

Happy Birthday Mother!

This photo was just taken three weeks ago. Mother would have been 97 today.

She passed away yesterday afternoon. Fortunately, she did not suffer.

We’ll All Miss You Mother!

Good-bye Marco - Hello Little Shark

We got an early start this AM for our 70 mile run to Little Shark River in the Everglades. For you automobile drivers, 70 miles probably does not sound like much. However, on a boat of our size, 70 miles is a big day. We typically run at 8.5 statute MPH. That gives us our best fuel economy, and is much more relaxing than running fast, especially when you have to dodge thousands of crab pots. We did get up and run a while at 25 MPH just to make some time. The water started out nice, but then turned into 2’s to 3’s on the port bow. Not too bad, but a little uncomfortable. 

Little Shark is a river in the everglades. It is about 110 miles from Marco to Marathon, so Little Shark is a nice stop to break the run into two days. It is a long ways from any town, road, or people.  We had talked to people who have anchored here, but of course, this is our first time here. I don’t care how many times you look at the charts, and map out your route, it’s always an adventure entering a new anchorage. 

The picture above is from our chart plotter. See the green channel marker at the lower left? That is your only aid to mark the entrance. Impossible to see from a mile out. However, that is the advantage of the plotter. It shows the surrounding area, and where you are. We ran up the river about a mile to try to get out of the wind, but where we dropped the hook, it was still blowing pretty good. You can see the boat location where we ended up anchoring. Our first spot was about 1/2 way from where the boat is now to the green entrance marker. We didn’t want to venture too much further, as we were unsure of the water depths. They start to shallow pretty quickly from where we were.

We dropped the dinghy into the water, took our handheld plotter, and scoped out the river a little further up. You can see our bread crumb trail, starting at and going back to our original spot. We wanted to make sure we could find our way back.

Most of the southern portion of Florida, the Everglades, is only a few feet above sea level. It is full of mangrove trees. There are alligators here, and all the cruising guides warn about not letting your pets out, or swimming. We haven’t seen any, yet!

Pat did manage to get a few dolphin shots though. I think she’s gonna have these guys eating out of her hand before we’re done!

Good night!  Time to watch another sunset!  Ken

Friends from home!

We arrived at Marinatowne Marina on Tuesday, settled into our slip and were greeted by Jim and Linnea, good friends from Ole Miss.  I am standing at their back door when I took this picture so you can see how close we were!  They are staying in this condo complex for 2 months and we were delighted to be able to visit with them for a couple days.  We had traveled the Hudson River and Champlain Canal system with Jim and Linnea when they did the Great Loop in 2005/2006!

Staying at the same complex are Dave and Pat, former Ole Miss boaters and Joe and Linda from “Mr. Joe” that Ken knew.  They joined us the first night for cocktail hour. 

On Day 2, Merritt and Iva from “Ole Miss” who are staying in Cape Coral came over for cocktail hour.  It was so fun to see friends from home!

Linnea made us several wonderful meals.....thank you Jim and Linnea for your wonderful hospitality!  We enjoyed a leisurely afternoon by the pool after a trip to the grocery store!

It was also great to do laundry without having to stuff quarters in the machine and walk a couple blocks to the laundry room!  Oh the comforts of home!

These are some pictures of the condo complex.

We awoke this morning to a beautiful sunrise and said good-bye to Jim and Linnea!

It was a beautiful cruising day out in the gulf with perfectly flat seas!  We traveled 62 miles and are anchored tonight in Smokehouse Bay at Marco Island! 

Tomorrow we will travel to the Little Shark River in the Everglades, an anchorage that boasts having alligators!  No swimming in this river!  So far friends that have gone before us have not seen an alligator, maybe we will be the first! 

Saturday we arrive in Marathon!

Hoping for smooth seas!  Pat